The Republican War on Transgender People, Drag Queens, and Queerness in General

[Clinamenic]

Surely the resemblance is obvious:

 

[Clinamenic]

It should be noted that I've gotten very good at making myself laugh.

 

[Clinamenic]

 

[Mr. Tea]

So you're what we'd call a "normie" which, to be clear, has an especially diminutive connotation in the cryptosphere.

I suppose we should be grateful it's not "muggle", at least.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

You're the expert. What does your handbook say?

Let's see if I can get some principles out of you beyond the oil-in-the-water trope about the gene pool and further explore your eugenic leanings: do you believe that a couple who are certain to have disabled offspring should be banned from intercourse, as you have said about those who are merely more likely to do so (if they fail to take precautions)?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Let's see if I can get some principles out of you beyond the oil-in-the-water trope about the gene pool and further explore your eugenic leanings: do you believe that a couple who are certain to have disabled offspring should be banned from intercourse, as you have said about those who are merely more likely to do so (if they fail to take precautions)?

I am well aware I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm going to treat your question as the earnest enquiry it obviously isn't.

Discouraging inbreeding isn't eugenics, because eugenics means encouraging or discouraging/preventing reproduction of favoured or disfavoured groups of people. 'Brothers and sisters' don't form an identifiable population, do they?

 

[subvert47]

@padraig (u.s.) Do you have a better "ontological" or "metaphysical" (ugh, for lack of a better word) foundation for us to think about trans than as "born in the wrong body"? Biologically that seems very strange/nonsensical to me and also is basically gender essentialist in the sense of saying there's a "male" or "female" brain which is obviously super problematic and opens the gates to serious gender discrimination. When trans people say this, it's OK if they're being metaphorical or loose, but I'm unable to make a leap to the steelman

I think "somatic dissonance" is a better description than "born in the wrong body". Your body is your body, but you can feel that it's not as it should be, that it's wrong, that what it says about you in a permanent physical way is not who you are.

Not all trans people have this, by the way, and it can vary in degree anyway from fairly mild to extremely severe. At the severe end it is life threatening because, as you can imagine, it's very difficult to live with such feelings.

And in case anyone thinks it is, no, this is not a form of mental illness; it can't be resolved by psychiatric intervention.

 

[subvert47]

Of course a top female tennis player could easily beat a man who doesn't even play tennis! The point is that it would be unfair to expect top female players to compete against top male players, and anyone who's gone through puberty with testicles will be at a huge advantage over anyone who hasn't, regardless of whatever treatment they've had since. It's not for no reason that sports are segregated by sex, because without that, women simply wouldn't get a look-in.

There's no "of course" about that. Renée Richards (who previously competed at a decent level in men's tennis) fought for the right to play in the Women's US Open in the 1970s, which she did from 1977-1981. Three times she went out in the first round. The best she managed was round three where she was thrashed by Chris Evert 6-2 6-1. And that was back then. I doubt she'd have won a single game against Serena Williams.

 

[bunnnnnn]

Have to say this is the worst thread I've ever read on this embarrassment of a forum

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I am well aware I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm going to treat your question as the earnest enquiry it obviously isn't.

Discouraging inbreeding isn't eugenics, because eugenics means encouraging or discouraging/preventing reproduction of favoured or disfavoured groups of people. 'Brothers and sisters' don't form an identifiable population, do they?

You're literally identifying them as those who have incest and they are thereby grouped...anyway, anything which acts against supposed 'pollution' of the 'gene pool' is eugenic by definition

First hit on Google: "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable"...you don't have to target groups to do this

 

[sus]

I think "somatic dissonance" is a better description than "born in the wrong body". Your body is your body, but you can feel that it's not as it should be, that it's wrong, that what it says about you in a permanent physical way is not who you are.

Not all trans people have this, by the way, and it can vary in degree anyway from fairly mild to extremely severe. At the severe end it is life threatening because, as you can imagine, it's very difficult to live with such feelings.

And in case anyone thinks it is, no, this is not a form of mental illness; it can't be resolved by psychiatric intervention.

How do think of Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder then? This description is basically identical to BIID symptoms

 

[IdleRich]

Have to say this is the worst thread I've ever read on this embarrassment of a forum

What specifically makes it so bad? Obviously there is one side to the argument which is.... let's just say wrong. But were no valid points made against that? Has everyone completely failed to understand the issue?

I'm not in any way trying to be provocative here and I hope that is clear. It's just that I feel so ignorant on this issue that I always worry about saying something that is offensive or that upsets someone. I really don't want to do that and so I normally end up sitting out - which is not exactly great either.

 

[Clinamenic]

What specifically makes it so bad? Obviously there is one side to the argument which is.... let's just say wrong. But were no valid points made against that? Has everyone completely failed to understand the issue?

I'm not in any way trying to be provocative here and I hope that is clear. It's just that I feel so ignorant on this issue that I always worry about saying something that is offensive or that upsets someone. I really don't want to do that and so I normally end up sitting out - which is not exactly great either.

Perhaps its the misplaced laddish academia Bunny takes issue with? Guilty of that myself.

 

[IdleRich]

Could be, I don't want to second guess her. Will wait for a response and find out for sure.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I think "somatic dissonance" is a better description than "born in the wrong body". Your body is your body, but you can feel that it's not as it should be, that it's wrong, that what it says about you in a permanent physical way is not who you are.

Not all trans people have this, by the way, and it can vary in degree anyway from fairly mild to extremely severe. At the severe end it is life threatening because, as you can imagine, it's very difficult to live with such feelings.

And in case anyone thinks it is, no, this is not a form of mental illness; it can't be resolved by psychiatric intervention.

I think the 'born in the wrong body' feeling must be taken at face value but one has to decolonise the philosophical lens from our restrictive Western 'elite' materialism to the more globally prevalent dualism/idealism to understand what might be going on: afaik it's not that the person prefers the mere idea of inhabiting an uninhabited opposite sex to their inhabited own (which seems like not enough motivation for the dysphoria imo, which is also not just a feeling of being ill at ease in one's own skin but a strong desire to be a particular alternative) but that their soul has previously been incarnated in the opposite sex and preferred it, consciously or unconsciously (the soul has actually inhabited both sexes). This then also explains the strong motivation to change the physical body rather than just perform the opposite sex - really, we would be speaking of transsexism rather than transgenderism, given adequate medical technology.

Paper:

ABSTRACT Objectives: This study examines childhood gender nonconformity (GNC) in conjunction with the phenomenon in which young children describe memories of a purported previous life. Methods: In a case-control study of 469 children reporting past-life memories, we used logistic regression to examine predictors of GNC, measured by documented gender nonconforming behaviors. Results: Children who remembered a life involving a different natal sex were much more likely to exhibit GNC than children who remembered a same-sex life. Conclusions: After exploring potential explanations, we conclude that past-life memories represent a novel factor that may be associated with the development of GNC.

 

[DannyL]

Have to say this is the worst thread I've ever read on this embarrassment of a forum

Having to read this arguments over and over must be tedious as fuck my sympathies.

 

[subvert47]

How do think of Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder then? This description is basically identical to BIID symptoms

I don't really know enough about BID to say, except that one of the criteria for a diagnosis is that someone is not gender dysphoric. i.e. it's not the same thing.

 

[Mr. Tea]

You're literally identifying them as those who have incest and they are thereby grouped...anyway, anything which acts against supposed 'pollution' of the 'gene pool' is eugenic by definition

First hit on Google: "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable"...you don't have to target groups to do this

Every actual eugenics programme has targeted a certain group. You know this, of course. African-Americans, native Australians, poor people in general, or people regarded as mentally deficient. The Chinese state is doing the same thing right now to Uyghur Muslims. There is simply no analogy in discouraging or banning incestuous reproduction.

And to turn things round the other way: consider a man and a woman that you, I mean, that a eugenicist might consider 'prime breeding stock': Harvard graduates, gifted athletes, tall, attractive, mentally stable, no family history of heritable diseases. The kind of people you think should have kids, and lots of them. But it would still be a bad idea for them to have kids with each other if they were first cousins, or (worse still) siblings.

 

[sus]

Have to say this is the worst thread I've ever read on this embarrassment of a forum

It's because everyone here has brainworms. Clearly I have less but I'm not so vain as to imagine I'm totally immune.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Every actual eugenics programme has targeted a certain group. You know this, of course. African-Americans, native Australians, poor people in general, or people regarded as mentally deficient. The Chinese state is doing the same thing right now to Uyghur Muslims. There is simply no analogy in discouraging or banning incestuous reproduction.

And to turn things round the other way: consider a man and a woman that you, I mean, that a eugenicist might consider 'prime breeding stock': Harvard graduates, gifted athletes, tall, attractive, mentally stable, no family history of heritable diseases. The kind of people you think should have kids, and lots of them. But it would still be a bad idea for them to have kids with each other if they were first cousins, or (worse still) siblings.

You consider the group of incestuous people to be unprime breeding stock